1254 Predicktable.

In my various Mass Effect playthroughs I romanced Liara, Tali, Ashley, and… Miranda. I think I even did Jack at one point, but didn’t pursue the file. I just wanted to see how the relationship played out. As far as my waifu is concerned I’d probably go with Liara. It’s not an easy choice though since she disappears through most of the second game and Tali is right there being adorable. Honestly, it’s really hard to decide between the two. Ashley gets annoying after a while, and while I like Miranda I have trouble with her belief system sometimes. I’m not sure how that plays out in the third game since I’ve only played a few minutes of it. I don’t actually know who your final options are when it comes to the finale. Like I said though, when it comes down to it, it’s Liara or Tali depending on how they change in the third game. I like that Ashley (or Kaiden I suppose) comes back for 3, but by that time it’s just to far along for me to get invested in them romantically again. In fact I’d probably save Kaiden if I ever started over just to take away the option in the future. He was a pretty good hand in a fight as I recall.
You know, I feel like I might have seduced Thaine at one point. Can you do that as male Sheppard? Maybe I just watched a video. I know I tried out some bi-curious options in ME and Dragon Age, but I forget how they played out. No… that’s not true. I remember the elf, Zevran, from Dragon Age pretty clearly. Anyway, I never played as a female Sheppard, so I don’t know how any of that plays out first hand. I’ve seen a lot of Garrus love on tumblr though…

In spite of the perpetual upheaval in my life I went ahead and added a creator goal to my Patreon. If the thing ever hits $1500 a month I’ll go back to updating Monday through Friday. I feel pretty secure in the knowledge that this will not happen for quite some time, if at all. With other, more popular, artists “draining the pool” so to speak, there isn’t much water left for the little people to swim in. Anyway, with that much money I could actually live like a normal human being. Not a rich human being, but I’d be making a little less then when I was an assistant manager in a retail store. That is more than enough for me if my job no longer involves doing menial tasks for these animals in people clothes we call customers. That amount has not been adjusted for inflation. I haven’t been a manager for at least 6 years, so I’m not sure what the average rate would be now. It would probably be zero dollars since there are so many fewer stores open. XD T^T

I thought about offering this for a long time before actually committing to it. The last year has pushed me so much that I think I finally have the speed required to maintain quality and produce more, especially if I have enough money to upgrade my tools. Besides, if I can’t do it all the time I can just not do it and fart out filler, or whatever, like other artists I won’t name. He said bitchily.

Nina’s sweet ass, in the sidebar, is the link to my Patreon at the moment. I’ve been trying to get around to making some new buttons for that stuff, but comics, you know?

An-Y-way, after that I dunno. I so rarely get feedback about what people want I’m not sure what else to offer. (Which is basically the same thing I said when I started the Patreon thing…) I’d like to seriously get the second volume of the book done. Done by someone other than me that is. I’d also like the first story to be collected into a single electronic book. One that matches the requirements for the various online publishers. (Or at the very least ONE of them…) After that I stopped following page size rules, so I dunno how that’s gonna work. Seems to me that it shouldn’t be a thing on the electronic end at the very least.

This is one of those things where I get kind of annoyed about people who say the internet is the wild west of new media; that there’s no gatekeepers. That’s total bullshit. There absolutely are, they’re just more subtle about it. Sure, you can slap a pdf on your site and rig up some kind of payment thing, but if you want reach you have to go to Amazon, Apple, Google, and maybe Comixology? My point is that there are gates and people keeping them. On some level I’m okay with that too. It’s their right to enforce rules for their services. If you can’t, or won’t, meet them then you don’t get to enter a business partnership. Even if you don’t go to those places there’s still the issue of payment to contend with, and it pretty much boils down to Paypal, which runs its business like a capricious god. All it takes is even a hint of rule breaking FROM ANY RANDOM DICK and you are screwed out of your money. That is a level of power I’m not comfortable with, which is why I don’t keep more than a twenty in my account if I can avoid it.

Whatever though, I’m done thinking about that for now.

I started a perfect playthrough of State Of Decay: Lifeline and it was abnormally good. I got 3 powerhouse characters and absolutely tore up the map even before saving the 3rd or 4th high value target. Then something went wrong… When the HVT mission spawned all the locations were infested near the usual place. Apparently that broke the game’s mind because the mission spawned outside the map area. At least as far as I know it did. I wandered all around the edge of the map and couldn’t find a way to get to the target. This disheartened me so much that I just restarted from the beginning again. Except I didn’t have the heart to play anymore, so I just saved and quit right after that. As much as I love that game it is plagued with game breaking glitches. Some of them are pretty entertaining, but there are a few that really dial down the fun factor. That mission is the one that glitches the most. I’ve failed it through no fault of my own at least 3 times. My theory is that in order to keep the glitch from happening you need to make the tavern next to the spawn point an outpost so that the location can’t become infested. That means that you need some foreknowledge to ensure success. I actually try to secure mission spawn points early anyway because if you don’t things can go wrong exponentially faster, and the NPCs do not have the zest for life they once did. If things start going south they lay down to die at the speed of light. Which made the glitch even more unfortunate because my team had 3 people that could clear zombies out like they were harvesting grain. Oh, and I also unlocked the hoodie ninja, which is a random NPC that has exceptional skills and a hoodie.

I may try to delve back in tonight, but I dunno. I feel like I really have the DLC figured out and can totally dominate the living dead this time, if I can summon the desire to do so. I already got all the achievements for it. Breakdown… not so much. They are not as fun to complete and I may never get them done. Killing zombies with a car door starts to lose its charm after the 100th some odd time.

Nice. I was wondering if you were gonna bring up the romance option in the comic.

As far as Mass Effect goes, I say its gotta be Tali, she’s so adorable and in the third game you get to see her face if you romance her. If you don’t romance her and a certain individual who loves calibrating is alive, there’s an interesting scene with can occur in the ME3 that is absolutely hilarious.

Liara is also a good option, but Ashley is a terrible person in my mind. She’s xenophobic while serving on a ship full of aliens, she’s rather rude and disrespectful, and she just doesn’t trust you after the encounter with her in ME2 where you save the planet she’s on from the collectors.

Are the human reactions the same if you did or didn’t carry their romance file over? Honestly I never romanced Ashley (maleshep) or Keidan (femshep), Ashley because of the xenophobia you mentioned (although haven’t tried with all paragon options to see if she changes like how you can shift garrus between renegade or paragon depending on your conversations with him) and Keidan because, well, he’s not my type ;p. I usually did a no romance playthrough (to not cheat in 2) or liara (and yes I was pretty pissed that 3 went the way it did, not because of the ending but because it felt like a bloody gears clone in gameplay, to the point I didn’t see how the relationships turn out) so I never got to see if the interactions were different in 2 depending on if you had romanced them.

What? Why, yes, yes I am out of my goddamn mind; what does that have to do with anything? I think you made Carol’s neck a little longer and slimmer (although certainly not so much as B6, here) in the past handful of episodes, and that’s what folks are keying off of.

I just checked the earlier B&W strips for comparison and the master is correct and knows his craft better than anyone. He is his most critical critic after all. Proportions and lines have not changed all that much though there have been marked changes in line-work and style, plus the use of colour.

If anything I would put it down to it being so rare to see Carol, or most other characters when you think of it, fully from the front and that throws us off just a bit.

I gotta say my single play through of the Mass Effect trilogy was great. I played fem Sheppard, had romance with Kaiden in 1, no one in 2, and Kaiden again in 3. It was sweet and very uplifting in my opinion. Also don’t let the general consensus of 3′s ending sour you before you try it. I was well enough invested in the characters and their struggles that the ending didn’t bother me.

As per patreon, I agree with above. Advertise it. Someone who wants to support your work will do so. And merchandising a brand (especially a web comic) is tough and requires significant investment before return. So patreon is a good way to go.

Hopefully after my lust for State of decay fades I can bring myself to finish ME3. I’m not worried about the ending either. Typically when that kind of hubbub grows out around something I end up having no issues with the media in question.

I think the reason that there was such a fuss about the ending was because the rest of the trilogy set such a high bar (because all of the games were goddamn excellent in my opinion). If it were any other game, most people wouldn’t have cared half as much.

Bioware makes games that are so very good, whenever they release something that is merely “OK” people are outraged. Compare Dragon Age: Origins to Dragon Age 2. It’s not that Dragon Age 2 is a bad game, it’s just bad compared to other Bioware games.

Also Dragon Age: Origins is excellent. I recommended the “Ultimate Edition” (congress with Awakening and all DLC) if you want something similar to Mass Effect.

I can second this. I played the first one, was amazed by the depth of the game (it is a bit older, so the graphics aren’t A++++, but neither are many PS2 games, and I still love most of them).
Dragon Age 2….meh. More a DLC for origins as a side story than a full new game.

I think Liara’s the best. She kind of grows with you through the three games even if she’s on the sidelines in ME2 I never played the Shadow Broker dlc so I don’t know if that improves things but n ME3 she’s awesome and super smart and you can romance her regardless of gender! Although I can see why people like Tali it’s hard to resist her in ME2.

As for humans Kaidan is way better than Ashley. It still hurts that I let him die on Vermire instead of her my first playthrough. If your a dude Jack is way more fun then Ash or Miranda and she calms down in ME3 or try Cortez he’s pretty cool.

I respectfully disagree. In my earlier post I said that the romance for fem shep and Kaiden was the only one I did. I felt that no matter the interaction between any other character, liara included, could match the over all connection those two had. Voice acting, blocking, and writing were perfect. Seeing Kaiden revile Shepard post Cerberus revival is heartbreaking. And the fact that reaction is a barrier you have to overcome in 3 made the relationship more impactful. Again this is just my opinion, nothing beats Kaiden fem shep

I’d like to note that in the first Mass Effect, all human females and Asari in the game shared the exact same body type from the neck down. Same height, same measurements, same everything. I realize that this was probably employed by the developers to save time, but it irks me nonetheless.
I noticed this a while after reading your comic that features men and women of various shape and sizes, and I just have to say that it’s refreshing. Maybe others don’t find it’s worth the effort

From what I remember, Thane is set to be straight only, the only male character who can be romanced by a male Shepard is in ME3, Cortez. Whereas, for Femme Shep, you have Liara, Jack (I think), Yeoman Chambers, and Liara again… but if you went with anyone else in 2, Liara will be pissy.

Mass Effect is my single most favorite series of games and I go back to it and do another playthrough about once a year.I enjoy the Dragon Age series but it doesn’t have nearly the emotional impact that ME has.
I did the whole Paragon thing for all three games and saved everyone that could be saved… only to find that I couldn’t save myself in the end and stay true to my version of Shep.
Actually teared up when having to make the final choice at the end of ME 3.
Nice to see that others have enjoyed this game as much as I!

Garrus is such a goddamn tease to my male-Shepherd. Seriously, one scene he literally goes “You’re not going to propose marriage now, are you?” in one of those I’m-making-a-joke-just-to-gauge-your-reaction kind of way.

I feel like you should do at least one FemShep playthrough, just for the voice acting. I have played both halves and just liked it better that way. And I do recommend playing 3 when you get the chance, even if the ending is irksome the game was quite enjoyable taken as a whole.

Ugh, I loved the role playing side of Mass Effect, but couldn’t stand the shooter aspect of it. So, I gave up and never picked it back up. Which really sucks because I WANT that story, I just don’t want to have to play through the shooter sequences.

Anyways, what I’ve found that I like on Patreon is the little perks that people offer for different dollar amounts. I currently support 3 artists on there and you’re one of them. But I have to admit that I was somewhat disappointed to see that you hadn’t set up any sort of perk system based on how much people give monthly. I think that would possibly help you get more people to sign up. Just a thought, this is one of my favorite comics and I’d love to see it go to M-F updates.

Well, one of the things often offered is early access to comics. Another would be additional art. Honestly, $1/month is really cheap to offer drawing someone like you did. You can also offer high res prints for people to print out. Have you looked at any of the other webcomics on there? If I remember correctly you’re a fan of QC and Jeph recently set up his own on there, he has all kinds of perk levels. I realize you may not be able to do that due to money/time constraints, but if you look at his it may give you some ideas on changes you can set on yours. The other comic that I support is NPC Comic (Mary Varn), and she doesn’t have as many options as Jeph, but again it could give you ideas of stuff you could offer for different commitment levels.

Bottom line, I love your comic and that’s why I decided to support it. I went with the same level I support NPC even though there were no additional perks just because I thought that was fair. However, if you had perks at a higher dollar amount that interested me, I would seriously consider raising my commitment to that level. And I’m sure I’m not the only one with this mindset.

In the meantime, keep up the good work with the comic and thanks for bringing me a little happiness every couple days.